


ayurnamat

by betweenclouds



Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:44:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenclouds/pseuds/betweenclouds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which gail and holly somehow manage to woo each other via sass and gail finds out that being a forensic pathologist can be just as dangerous as being a cop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ayurnamat

**1.**

“Do you want to get out of here?”

Gail’s head snaps up from where her eyes are burning holes into her champagne glass – she had caught sight of McNally and Nick sauntering in minutes earlier and suddenly found the warm color far more interesting in an attempt to (unsuccessfully) cool her anger – and glares at Holly. “Look Holly, just because you’re all gay – ”

“Come on,” Holly interrupts, grinning for all the world like she didn’t just interrupt her mid-sentence. Gail doesn’t fight the fingers that wrap around her wrist and pull her away.

+

“You know, this wasn’t really what I thought you were talking about.”

Her legs are bent at the knee, feet and butt pushed firmly onto the floor of the coat room, glass still in her hand and a practically full bottle next to her. Holly’s going through all the coats she had hung earlier during her brief foray, pausing on each one to hold it up for Gail’s opinion. Halfway through the selection, she learns to expect how much Gail loves it by how much she detests it.

“I know,” she retorts, holding up a fur wrap that she sort of hopes is faux. Gail’s face practically lights up – at least as much as she thinks the normally stoic officer would ever allow – so she takes it from the hanger and walks it over to her. With a dramatic flourish, she holds it out. “M’lady?” Gail snorts and snatches it away, leaning forward to wrap it around her shoulders.

“Sit down, nerd.”

 **2.**  

Gail’s sure fingers don’t waste any time bringing up the contact’s name – instead they go straight to typing out the number she didn’t know she memorized.

Two rings.

“ _Hello_ ,” the voice on the other end drawls when she picks up the phone.

“Hey, what are you doing tonight?”

“ _Well, I kind of have plans but he’s a dreadful conversationist, so if you want to do something, I am all yours._ ” Her voice was distant - not in sound, but in tone - her words absentmindedly chosen and her attention obviously elsewhere.

Gail furrows her eyebrows, confused. “You have a date with a guy?”

“ _Yeah, but he’s a little stiff and – let me tell you – that is not how I like my guys. Or, you know, at all_ ,” she responds, her smile practically palpable through the phone.

“Wow, your job must suck then,” Gail chimes saucily, too caught up in trying to tame the stupid smile on her face to take care in what she’s saying.

“ _Oh, you have no idea. I, on the other hand, absolutely refuse._ ”

Gail can’t stop the snort of laughter the words cause. “You’re a nerd. When will you be done with your date?”

“ _I think I’m going to put him on ice until tomorrow – give myself something to look forward to. Meet me at the diner two streets over in fifteen?_ ”

“Sure.” Gail hangs up before either one of them can formally end the call.

+

“Why do you always smile whenever I insult you?” Gail asks critically, reaching across the table and snagging a fry from her counterpart’s plate. Holly doesn’t try to stop her; if anything, she scoots the plate a little closer to her, as if offering all of it. She refuses to grab another, though, and it makes Holly roll her eyes affectionately.

“I don’t know,” Holly replies after a steaming mouthful of hot chocolate that leaves her tongue slightly burned. “It’s just – so you.” Gail arches an eyebrow. “It’s honest and brash. It’s refreshing, when you’re around the politics of law – which, unfortunately, reach to the morgue.”

“That’s what you get for having dead bodies everywhere,” Gail hums, finally reaching out to steal another fry. She pauses during the act of putting it into her mouth to make a ‘go on’ motion with the lightly salted food. Holly just moves the plate all the way onto Gail’s side, bumping the other ceramic dish out of the way in the process.

“It’s comforting.”

When Gail looks up, Holly’s face is pressed up to her steaming drink, her glasses fogging. The sheepish, embarrassed smile on the brunette’s face when the mug is placed back on the table has her laughing too much to question what Holly meant.

Fifteen minutes later, fries decimated and cup empty, they pull on their coats and leave, walking slowly to their respective vehicles. There is distance between their bodies, distance made by Holly who stares at the dark sky with her arms spread wide and her eyes closed. She stumbles over the slightly uneven lot and catches herself on Gail’s sleeve, pulling it and partially stretching the fabric. Her response is all giggles, even as she catches sight of the surprised glare furrowing her counterpart’s brow.

“Was your drink spiked or something?” Gail asks, stopping her strides to make sure she’s steady on her feet again.

Holly rolls her eyes in her typical fashion, but her smile diminishes a little and she puts her hands self-consciously in her pockets. Her eyes planted on the ground, she doesn’t see the raised eyebrow of concern as she meanders the rest of the way to her vehicle.

“Do you have anything planned after this?”

Holly almost jolts in surprise – she hadn’t been aware that Gail was shadowing her to her destination. She persuades a lock of hair to go behind her ear without jolting her glasses from its resting place and promptly shakes her head, replacing the hair when it slips out in the motion.

“No, I don’t.” She pauses, looks contemplative and smiles in a calculating way that relaxes Gail and simultaneously puts her on edge. “But how was your day today?”

“It was okay?” The way her voice rises a little at the end, turning it into an unsure question, causes her to repeat the same thing in a more commanding tone.

“Because my day absolutely sucked, and I could really go for busting some balls right about now.”

Gail’s face becomes even more hilarious when Holly hears the “Are you serious?” she yells from her vehicle minutes later when they pull up in side-by-side parking spaces outside the batting cages.

 **4.**  

" -  _and so I thought, you know, a detective would be a good match for you! Both of you have sucky hours that never end, and both of you understand that world!_ ”

"Sure, Elle, that may be true but that doesn’t mean - "

“ _Come on, Holly! You’re my older sister, and I’m just looking out for you. She just transferred to Toronto and I know she could use some company, even if nothing else comes of it. Besides, you haven’t dated since she-who-shall-not-be-named and you need to get out there._ ”

"She’s not the female form of Voldemort, you can actually say her name," Holly shoots, hoping that if she changed the subject that the date idea would be dropped, even if the new conversation is unwanted in topic.

“ _Not without my gag reflex kicking in_ ,” the voice at the end of the line retorts, bringing a smile to her face. “ _But, anyway, on the subject of the date_ …” Holly groans and drops her head onto her desk with a satisfying thud. “ _Her name’s Kim and I already told her about you and gave her your number to call, so you better not avoid it or else I’m transferring over there too and moving in with you._ " Holly makes an unintelligible noise that her sister must take for acquiescence because her voice is much more chipper as she bids farewell and leaves her to her work.

When her phone rings again just after lunch, her stomach curls in apprehension and she contemplates ignoring it and turning on the bone saw in her hands as she was about to do, but changes her mind when she remembers her sister’s threat - one she knows wasn’t said in jest, as doing so had been considered before and almost followed through, despite Holly’s many protests that it wasn’t necessary, that she was fine and didn’t need her baby sister to transfer to a completely different city to take care of her. So she sets the saw down, removes her gloves, and turns her back on the slab to swipe her phone up and answer on its final ring.

Kim is sweet and nervous over the phone, but relaxed enough to complete her mission in asking Holly to meet her for dinner that evening. She makes sure to say there is no pressure on the evening, that it will be merely a meeting for friends, which immediately puts her at ease and makes her think that maybe her sister wasn’t wrong - she could potentially like this person.

But all thoughts of Kim are eradicated from her mind when Gail appears hours later with a coffee and a bored look on her face.

+

She loses herself in her work and doesn’t think to at the time until her phone buzzes at five minutes to seven. She ignores it, choosing instead to try to finish transposing her findings onto her computer rather than entertain whomever deigned to text her during work hours. It’s not until it vibrates a reminder five minutes later that she remembers her promised plans.

She curses under her breath and fumbles to pause the voice recording before lunging toward her phone, nearly falling from her chair in her haste. If there is one thing she hates, it’s being late for something, and she knows her sister would throw a fit if she gave the impression she was standing Kim up for their meeting.

The text is from Gail, asking if she has plans, because she has too much ice cream and alcohol for one person to consume by his or herself, and that there was a Buffy marathon currently airing. On any normal circumstance, Holly would roll her eyes and reply that she would cancel all of her plans because, after all, who in their right mind would miss a Buffy marathon? But instead she types out a hasty message that she is otherwise engaged for the night, not bothering to fix the few spelling mistakes her rushed thumbs cause. 

She leaves the building in under ten minutes, partially winded as she waves goodbye to the security guard. Her eyes glued to her cell phone screen as she pulls up Kim’s number, she nearly misses the two shapes laying on the hood of her car. When she does glance up as she puts the mobile to her ear, she freezes. She swallows carefully around the lump in her throat and steps back a few paces before she dares to try and unlock her car. When it beeps at her, she can’t stop the flinch. 

The phone to her ear rings twice more before she can collect the courage to open her door. It’s with a sigh of relief when nothing out of the ordinary happens, and she nearly drops her phone as she turns on the cabin light, illuminating her hood more than the moonlight and sparse street lights could. She stares, her door still open, and shakes a little.

She almost shrieks when she hears a voice in her ear, but then she comes back to herself and swallows the fear creeping up on her. 

“ _Holly?_ " Kim asks uncertainly, unsure if she had heard her the first time.

"Hey, Kim, sorry," Holly replies with a shaky smile. "I’m running a little late - I lost track of time during an autopsy and didn’t realize it was cutting into the rest of my time for other jobs until a few minutes ago and - " She forces herself to breath, to stop rambling. "Do you mind if we meet up at eight thirty instead? I still need to go home and shower and change." If Kim notices the slight strain to her voice, she doesn’t let on.

“ _Uh, yeah, okay. Did you still want to meet at the same place or…_ " She trails off, leaving it open for Holly to decide.

The brunette glances down at her hand for a moment before returning her gaze to the two dead birds in front of her. She wasn’t sure she’d feel safe in a restaurant, not one in which she wasn’t certain of anyone there. “Actually, can we meet up for a drink, instead? There’s this bar nearby - it’s called The Black Penny - “

Once the plans are changed and solidified once more, Holly sits in her car, arms wrapped around her legs as she stares into nothing, looking at the threat on her car without really seeing. Her mind whirls, trying to remember her theories of who it was last time it happened, when she was still sharing an apartment with her sister, before she transferred to get away from the person leaving her death threats after the police came up empty on the culprit. It takes her knees accidentally pushing against her horn and causing it to sound to remember where she is, that she’s sitting in her work parking lot with her door open. 

+

When she walks into The Penny later, her hands have only just stopped shaking and she manages not to check behind her every few minutes. She’s still a little scared, but the warmth and safety that somehow accompanies a bunch of police officers and detectives slowly working towards being drunk washes over her and she feels her stiff neck become just the slightest bit looser. 

Her feet automatically carry her to the bar, needing the slightest bit of alcohol to relax enough to be personable on this non-date meeting. It’s with a jolt that she hears the most relaxing voice coming from behind her, causing a smile to rise on her face unbidden. Her shoulders automatically loosen and she forgets the problematic thoughts that had been bouncing around her mind mere seconds earlier. 

When she sees Kim come in - her sister had been nice enough to send a picture “ _so you know I’m not lying about her being attractive,_ " she had claimed - she feels ready to meet someone new, whether she be a potential love interest or not. 

**5** _**.** _

_Gail, I need you and Diaz to head back. Ford isn’t here and Andy and Swarek just called to tell us Oliver’s squad car is outside._

_Yes sir._

_+_

Gail grips the phone tightly in her hand, the plastic digging into her skin comfortingly as she paces back and forth outside the passenger door. “Holly, Holly, I need you to calm down,” she says in a way that is hopefully soothing and doesn’t betray the panic she feels. Where the hell is Chris?

“ _Yeah, right._ ” She hears deep breaths being taken and then what sounds like Lamaze breathing.

“You’re not going into labour here,” she snaps, nerves frayed.

“ _Among other things, it’s supposed to help you relax and stop panicking whilst simultaneously giving you something to think about other than labour – or, in this case, being in the same building as someone with a gun._ ” Holly’s voice is the calm one this time, and it relaxes Gail enough for her to smile a little.

“The building is full of people with guns on a regular basis,” Gail inputs with a bit of a bite.

“ _Not one who wants to shoot people!_ ” Holly sounds like she’s going to start freaking out again, her voice high and gaining in volume. Gail takes a deep breath to say something, anything to calm her down, but is cut off as Chris finally reappears from the café he had gone in, two cups in his hand. She puts the phone speaker against her shoulder to reprimand him, when Holly’s voice – impossibly tiny in the distance between the speaker and her ear – shrieks out her name in worry. She ignores him, too worried to truly appreciate the free tea she took from his hand, and gets in the squad car. She turns on the sirens as he pulls onto the streets. She blocks out Chris’ presence from her mind.

“Now, Holly,” her voice is low, soothing, a voice used when one is trying to calm a frightened animal. She swallows and takes a shot at a joke – if anything, it might get her to smile, right? “You and I both know that’s not true – not when I’m in there.”

A small chuckle sounds over the speaker pressed against her ear. “ _That’s true._ ”

“Holly, where are you?” She asks, chewing on her lip.

“ _Hiding by a desk_ ,” she replies quietly.

Gail gulps. No, no – that was too open, anyone could see her and find her. Anyone included Ford. “Okay, Holly? I need you to do something for me.” Her gentle, commanding tone speaks nothing of her bouncing leg. She glances at Chris, finally acknowledging his presence, telling him through thoughts and look to hurry up and drive faster. “Find a room that locks and stay there until I find you, okay? Like an interrogation room or something. Will you do that?” Gail hates how it sounds like she’s talking to a child, someone small that doesn’t understand exactly what is going on, but knows enough to be scared – but really, doesn’t that fit Holly in some way?

“ _Yeah, okay._ ” A few shuffling sounds, and then that of fabric being jostled, as if the phone is being held against a shoulder as she walks through the halls on her mission. Gail allows herself a quiet breath of relief – Holly is going to be safe.

Until suddenly she isn’t so sure.

A shot fires, rapidly followed by another, causing Gail’s free hand to curl in on itself and practically pierce the skin with nails. “Holly, are you okay?” She barks out, leaning forward a little. She doesn’t relax until she hears a shocked voice coming over the line. “Yeah.” A pause, a sharp inhale.

“ _Yeah._ ” She sounds frazzled, drawn from fear and shock. “ _It was in another hallway._ ” A shaky breath and then a realization. “ _God, what if somebody’s hurt? I should go over and check on them. I usually work on dead people, but I can still help stem blood flow and help until the medic arrives_  – ”

“No, Holly!” Gail interrupts. Holly can’t go over there – there’s a shooter, even if she’s sure the second shot annihilated the threat, she can’t be as sure as she’d like when she was blocks away. “Find that room and wait for me, okay?” Holly makes a protesting sound, filling her with a little pride because she’s obviously scared but still trying to do the right thing – but the right thing is scaring Gail, so she lowers her voice, makes it soft and pleading. “Please?”

“ _Okay._ ”

And Gail smiles, leaning her head against the headrest. “Thank you.” Except she can’t get the whole phrase out before there’s another shot – louder this time, way too close to the phone and its carrier – and the line goes dead. “Holly!” She screams instead.

How many times has someone been killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Gail frantically tries to reaffirm contact, calling her and yelling her name over and over, even when it goes straight to voicemail. Worry turns to fury when she looks up at Chris – this was his fault, his and his stupid bladder’s. “If we’re not back at 15 in less than five minutes,” she trails off threateningly, glaring at the cop as much of a rookie as she. He nods, taking the blame wordlessly, and smoothly navigates the streets.

“What the hell took so long,” Gail hisses, fingers dialing Holly again and again. “You said you were leaving the washroom when I called you.”

“I’m sorry! I was leaving the bathroom when somebody who worked there saw I wasn’t buying anything – and since they couldn’t erase the fact I went pee, they made me buy something because apparently it’s policy or something.” He pushes in the horn and jerks the wheel suddenly, flying through an intersection onto a perpendicular street. “There was a line and they refused to serve me before everyone else, even when I told them what was going on.”

“ _I’m sorry_  doesn’t remove the fact that we could have been at the station already.”  _I’m sorry_  doesn’t change the fact that Holly could be dead in a place she only went to for Gail. She leaves that thought unsaid and just continues to dial Holly, this time with harder strokes of her fingers.

Chris wisely decides not to comment, and just pushes harder on the gas instead.

One more street.

The radio crackles.

“We have a shot officer and an injured lab tech at 15.” The car is barely stopped before Gail flies out, bypassing a large crowd of people with only a look to see if Holly is among them. She doesn’t care how wild she looks, cares only for Holly and finding her. And find her she does, her jacket pressed into Swarek’s stomach to staunch the bleeding, her blue shirt off and wrapped around her left arm, her white tank top stained with blood that could be either of theirs.

She doesn’t pause, just runs the rest of the way and then slides ( _see Holly? I can so do softball_ ) up next to her in a fluid motion. “Holly - ” She can’t bring herself to say any words, just wraps a hand on her forearm and examines her closely.


End file.
